The present invention relates to a method for responding to a site access to a service provider site when a service provider site providing useful service is accessed by a user.
Along with a substantial prevalence of the Internet, the number of WWW (World Wide Web, hereinafter referred to as Web) sites begins to increase on the Internet. When a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) which is a unique address allocated for respectively specifying a Web site on the Internet is input to an address enter column of a Web browser incorporated in the terminal, the Web browser can specify and directly access the Web site based on the law of the URL to receive the corresponding Web page from the Web site. That is, the user is required to directly access the target site in order to receive the service on the Internet.
The fact that the Web page is specified based on the specification of the URL and desired service is obtained means that customers can make a direct access to the Web site of the trading partners to receive various kinds of service even in an electronic commercial trade in which enterprises provide product sales and service to general customers, in addition to trade between enterprises in which not only a data exchange for placing and receiving orders is simply made on the Internet but also an exchange is made on the Internet over the whole commercial trade such as advertisement, contracts and settlement of accounts.
However, in the commercial trade in an actual society, with an increase in the number of organizations such as enterprises or the like which are cooperating with or affiliated with other enterprises, there can be seen a tendency that such cooperation and affiliation relationship as a whole is evaluated as the capability of the enterprise itself. Thus, a plurality of enterprises are affiliated with each other as business partners so that the enterprises are widely cooperating with each other in a mutually compensating manner in their respective fields of specialty. As a consequence, both enterprises will make a progress, and a reliability with customers will be more secured. The application of such a situation to the Internet service as it is becomes an important issue in the development of the electronic commercial trade from now on.
However, as seen from the side of customers, even with respect to other enterprises which are cooperating or affiliated with the trading enterprises which have established reliability relationships with the customers over a long years, those business partner enterprises of the trading enterprises are in the position of the third party which is not a direct trading enterprise. The actual situation of the enterprises is not necessarily grasped, so that in many cases, there is a worry in conducting the actual commercial trade by making a direct access to business partners of the trading enterprises without conducting a reliability survey on enterprises. Furthermore, introduction from the trading enterprises to the enterprises which are related with their own business partners is likely to give to customers an impression that such introduction is merely an mediation and conciliation in which the capability of enterprises is questioned even when the enterprise and the trading enterprise have a mutually compensating relationship.
Consequently, affiliation between mutually compensating enterprises becomes a large merit for the side of business entities providing Internet service, but the affiliation has an aspect which cannot be emotionally accepted as seen from the side of customers of the business entities.
On the other hand, there arises a problem in that in the network environment in which a large-scale service provider site providing useful service on a nation-wide scale on the Internet and a small-scale service provider site providing the same kind of service on a regional or an individual level are present, a large scale advertisement activity is required for allowing large-scale service providers to newly incorporate customers who have established a reliability relationship with small-scale service providers through a long-year trade relationship or for allowing small-scale service providers to newly incorporate customers who have established reliability relationship through a long-year trade relationship with large-scale service providers so that a large amount of time and labor is required to obtain customers and the like.